Well, since Wed night was brought up, I would like to say some things about raiding in general that I believe would be helpful to our team and continued progression.
I would like to thank Rhys and Rob for their leadership. I know that it takes extra time and dedication for you to provide the leadership to the group, along with some extra pressures and headaches. Thanks again.
When it comes time to raid, I believe that we should be raiding and allowing our leaders to lead that raid. I know from 40-man raiding that starting whisper conversations with the RL during the raid is very distracting to the leader and can only have a negative effect upon the current raid in-progress. Just because we are a 10-man raid does not mean that such conversations cease to have such an effect. If something is important to the raid it can be brought up over TS or in raid chat. However, if you have a difference of opinion on how the raid should be led, then I do not think that during the raid is the appropriate time to discuss it. Suggestions on how to handle a failed encounter would be appropriate when the RL asks for it. Any suggestion that someone else should take the lead during a raid is totally inappropriate. If you are having difficulty with the team's leadership, discuss it outside of the raid and make your own decision as to whether you want to continue being a part of the team. During the raid the leadership should have the support of the team.
We should be ready at start time with all pots, foods, repairs, ammo, and whatever else you need to play your class. We should be ready for invites 10-15 minutes prior to the start time and at the door or ready for the summons to the stone. We do have a committed member of the team who cannot be on time because of a time-zone difference, but the decision to maintain that person's spot is with the RL and I personally support it. We can easily clear through to Attunemen by the time this person can arrive if we do our part in being on time and ready. I am concerned with our ability to progress if we continue to have late starts. It would also be helpful if those who cannot make their regular spot would post here as some have, or even better, make use of the Guild Calendar mod and clearly note your planned attendance.
I am also supportive of us increasing our pace through the "trash" mobs as long as we have clear communication so that we know when we could be in a difficult situation due to mana issues. If we get good at it, we should be able to rotate through characters and always have a healers and mana-based dps with their mana in a good place. We will only grow as we push ourselves to do better. We should not, however, try to compensate for late starts with this as I believe that is the wrong motive and only covers over a discipline deficiency that needs to be addressed.
We have shown the ability to clear through Curator in an evening without skipping and I believe we can do so again and even beyond.
As a final note, let's not forget this is only a game and that as a guild we believe in having a Christ-like attitude towards each other. When we stand before Jesus, He isn't going to care if we were all epic'd out or not. The real question is whether we were light to the world and salt to the earth.
Merril
PS Oh yeah, and if we can't get a critical mass of players who can commit to 7 PM so we can start clearing mobs at 7 PM, then maybe we need to consider a 7:30 start. I would rather know the start time than hope for the start time.